Friday, May 10, 2002

Business Games

I used to think I didn't like business games. I'm not sure where Igot that idea, but I was pretty sure they weren't my thing. Onepossible reason is that when I was first introduced to Acquire I wastold it was a business game, and while I enjoy Acquire a great deal,it isn't as much my kind of game as many others. I don't actuallythink Acquire is a business game. Acquire is a stock game, and a cashmanagement game, but it's not really what I'm calling a business game.

So, since not everyone always agrees exactly what a"<fill-in-the-blank> game" is, I'll define "businessgame" for how I mean it. A business game is a game that at some levelattempts to simulate the operation of a business which produces somesort of goods and sells them on a market. This operation may be at avery low level (individual workers, products, etc.) or at a very highlevel (product categories, growth rate, etc.). The level ofsimulation may be anything from detailed accounting down to individualunits, or some high level general business strategy. The productionof goods may be of only one type (typical) or of a few differentvarieties. The market may range from a mathematically simulatedmarket to draw of random "market" cards or the like.

Some business games I've either played a lot recently or played forthe first time recently include Industrial Waste, Funkenschlag, andSchocko & Co. The last one in particular is prototypical of what manypeople dislike about business games, but yet I like it a great deal.Most business games are perhaps somewhat more repetetive than otherGerman games. Markets and production details and prices fluctuate,but in many ways the conditions remain similar throughout the game.Further, there is often a lot of simultaneous action, and sometimes areduced perception of player interaction. In Schocko & Co., prettymuch all actions are in parallel for all players, and the playersinteractions is through a shared set of consumers and through playingof action cards on one's opponents.

These properties are clearly not true in all business games. Vino,another business game I particularly like does not remain the same asthe game progresses. The limited number of resources (vinyards) becomescarcer and more expensive until the end of the game, changing thedynamic greatly as the game progresses. Others, like Funkenschlag,have a slightly more complex marketplace that evolves over time, andin an occasionally predictable way, allowing for some interestingplanning options. Further, a game like Merchant of Venus completelyviolates the "simultaneous actions" principle, and players take turns(which is, in my opinion, the game's biggest flaw). However, ifplayed with the alternate setup variant, it has one of the mostinteresting "market simulations" in any of these games.

Some games that have many properties of a business game I wouldn'tqualify. Many of these I would categorize as stock games (Acquire,Palmyra, etc.), while others lack the feature of any representation ofthe business' operations. Samarkand is a fun set collection game, butdespite many parameters in common, it's not a business game.Showmanager/Atlantic Star is in the same camp. It's got a lot of theattributes: a shared market for resources (actors), a relativelyuniform environment, and a shared market for product (shows), butnothing about the operations of the business.

Obviously, I like a lot of different kinds of games, but it is veryintriguing to me whenever I identify a common feature that makes melike a game that isn't trivially obvious. I like certain themes,that's easy. I like auction mechanics, and I was quick to identifythat. However, it's taken me a long time to realize that I reallylike business games (operations, production, input and outputmarkets).

Industrial Waste, while on the lighter side as business games go, isone of my recent favorites. Vino, I've been fond of for a long time.Funkenschlag and Schocko & Co. both seem very good, if a bit on thelong side, and I'll see if they stand the test of time.

Personal

Professional

I am a Engineering Director at Google. My team and I work on Search.

Previously, I was the CTO at an 802.11 location and security company, Newbury Networks in Boston. In June, 1999 I received my Masters degree from the MIT Media Lab. I graduated from MIT (undergraduate) in June, 1997, in physics. Prior to that I was CTO of net.Genesis from 1994 to 1996.